Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Updates should be more or less regular for a bit, touch wood. I hope you continue to enjoy the fic and would love to hear everyone's opinions.

Oh, and thanks to PK9 for inventing a bit of the D7 slang seen later in this chapter :)

The rest of training passes in a blur. My mind is still in turmoil after the events of this morning and is very happy to let my body work on autopilot. The knot-tying instructor seems to have decided to take the poor confused girl from District Seven under her wing, and this suits me just fine.

I spend the morning practising knots, which I realise will be the perfect skill to show the Gamemakers. It'll give me a few points but not enough for anything near what most of the others will get. The part of my brain that's in complete and utter chaos wonders how I'm managing to think this clinically. To be honest, I don't really know – a distraction from thinking about this morning, maybe.

Every so often I catch myself remembering the feeling of Rowan's lips on mine. Always, I jolt out of these moments and glance around guiltily to see if anyone else noticed my slip. No one ever does, except for one time when I look to see Rowan staring at me with a knowing smile on his lips.

I just redouble my efforts to avoid him and try to get lost in my knot tying. It doesn't always work, though, and at times I catch myself glancing around to see where he is and what he's doing.

Proof that you like him, whispers the traitorous voice in my head. But is it proof? Or do I only feel like this towards him because he's probably the last guy I'll ever see? Part of me, the old optimistic romantic side that I thought I'd squashed long ago, tries to reassure me that I do like him, and that he does like me. The more cynical part of me thinks otherwise.

I glance across at Rowan again and see he has some sort of dreamy smile on his face. He does like you like that, thinks the inner optimist triumphantly. I ignore that part of me, as I always do. It's never been right before; why should this time be any different?

"Are you sure you're fine?" asks the knot tying trainer for what must be the sixth time today.

I realise that I've been mumbling to myself and smile weakly, giving off the hopefully perfect impression of a shy and terrified girl.

"Yes, I'm certain."

"I don't believe you, but this isn't any of my business. Now, this knot is called…"

I end up eating lunch at the same table with Rowan, just as had occurred for the previous two days. Unlike those earlier days, we don't talk. I stay silent and he doesn't seem like he wants to be the first to broach a subject. Finally, just as District One is being called in to see the Gamemakers, he speaks up.

"Look Johanna, we need to talk. It doesn't have to be now – I know I'd rather not talk about something like that with an audience – but it does need to be soon. I'd rather like a resolution before I die."

"You're not going to die," I respond automatically. "But fine. We'll talk. Tonight, after we've had our private sessions and before we get our scores."

He nods, and we spend the rest of our time waiting in silence. Silence that seems to take forever as slowly, slowly, the room begins to empty of people. Until finally, District Six is being called. After them it seems like an eternity, but eventually I get called in.

When I walk into the training room again it doesn't take too much effort to over emphasise my nervousness. This, and the resulting score, is what my plan hinges on. If I give away too much then the others will view me as an important target, but too little and I have such a low score there's no point leaving me till later, not the mention the conspicuous absence of sponsors this'll leave. Even the most sympathetic of viewers like to sponsor someone with a tiny chance.

I glance up at the balcony that holds the Gamemakers to see them occupied with food and drinks laid in front of them. Ah well. At least it means they'll be paying less attention to me and be more willing to give a not particularly notable score.

After a few seconds one glances up. "Go ahead."

So I do. My first beeline is for knots, where I'm not incredibly skilled but not too bad either. After I tie a few average looking knots, I head over to weaponry to prove just how terrible and harmless I am. Even then, I make sure to keep well away from axes. They might be half drunk but even the Gamemakers won't believe that someone from District Seven can't raise an axe. Finally I'm told to leave and do so with quite a bit of relief – I've begun to run out of ideas for stations to make my mediocre way through.

My relief fades when I find Rowan waiting for me outside the door I exit from.

"What are you doing here?" I hiss.

"Waiting for you. We need to talk, remember?"

I remember. I'd just hoped to keep avoiding him for the next few days until it wouldn't matter anymore.

Rowan seems to read my mind. "I had the feeling you'd try to avoid me. But we need to deal with what happened this morning, and I'd rather do it today. I don't particularly feel like ending up on the wrong side of the tree with all this on my mind."

"You're not going to die," I tell him again, pressing the button to call the lift.

Rowan whirls around to face me. "Will you stop saying that? We both know it's not true. Odds are I am going to die – odds are you will too. Pretending that I will make it out alive isn't doing anything. It's just making me feel like you think I'm a child who can't handle the truth!"

The lift doors slide open and we step through them into it.

"I will when you stop dealing with your death so matter of factly," I snap back at Rowan. "I know what the Games are like just as much as you do, Mister 'oh I'm so much smarter than everyone else'. You don't need to keep reminding everyone of how you're about to die every ten seconds."

"Why not? Why shouldn't I be a realist?"

"Because you're not being a realist! You're being fatalistic. There's a difference."

It's one I had to pick up on quickly. When you've had as many things happen to you as I have you need to learn to deal with them. Vince and I both take opposite routes, but even through my route of cynicism you still need to learn that the world isn't just a pit of doom and despair. Vince acts as my reminder of that, and he's what keeps me sane.

"Is there?" Rowan asks, challenging me.

"Yes! I know I'm probably going to die. But there's still a chance for me to get out alive – and that's why I'm going through all this faking weak torture. You say you know you're going to die – so you will, because you're not going to try to do anything else."

We step out of the lift into the seventh floor.

"Well I will. Short of something wiping out everyone else, there's no way I'll make it out of there alive." Rowan lowers his voice a bit, realising he was yelling. "And you know what, Johanna? I've made my peace with it. I know I've only got a few days left, and so I'd rather not spend them with all this tension hanging around."

I ignore the last half of his statement. "Why do you keep going on about how you're going to die. So am I, but I don't spend all my time crying for attention over it!"

Rowan looks at me angrily. "Why do you care?"

I look at him, just look, and discover that my frustration with him might be real but I'm not feeling anger. It's something else, something I can't quite place. And then all the emotions I've been feeling all day burst out of me into just four words.

"Why do you think?"

The words seem to hand there in the air forever, loaded with meaning. After what seems like forever but really can't be more than a few seconds Rowan's face clears of any remaining annoyance and changes into a softer expression. The same one he wore this morning, I realise. He takes a step across the floor, closer to me, and hugs me tightly.

I hug him back, feeling the warmth of his body against mine, and rest my head against his shoulder. It fits there perfectly. We stand there, just hugging, for what must be minutes before I finally pull away from him gently.

"You're not going to run again, are you?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No more running. You were right, Rowan. I don't want to spend the next few days wrapped up in this tension either."

Already the tension between us seems to be disappearing, and we're going back to the way we were before this morning. Only different. Better, maybe.

Rowan grins at me, that cheeky smile that is just essentially him. "I always am right."

I roll my eyes and swat at him playfully.

"Seriously though," he continues, "we do need to talk about this. Clear the air properly."

"Yeah, we do. But not in here; it's much too public."

He smirks again. "So whose room – yours or mine?"

"You do know what they'll think when we both come out of the same room together," I point out.

"No they won't. We're only fifteen. What do they think we'd be getting up to?"

I pull a face, thinking of some of the people I know. Those who were more desperate before the Community Centre than Vince or I ever were, those who technically still have relatives to live with. I'm lucky – I was never particularly good looking, and never that desperate.

"You'd be surprised."

Rowan sees the shadow pass over my face but doesn't comment. "We'll leave the door open then and talk quietly. Then no one would be able to suspect anything but a friendship between two tributes. I'm sure that must happen sometimes."

And so that is what we end up doing. Rowan perches on his bed; I sit leaning against the wall where nobody casually passing through the halls would be able to see me. And we talk.

At first we avoid the subject that was why we wanted to start our conversation. Rowan says he's being unusually forward in his approach as is, and neither of us are the type to tackle emotional issues head on. I prefer proper things I can fight.

Even with the almost-forced light conversation, it's a relief to be free of the tension that's been haunting us all day. It's also nice to know that the kiss didn't change too much between us, that we can still talk just as we used to. I've only known Rowan for a few days, and yet still catch myself thinking in much longer term words. Then again, in the past few days I've gotten to know him better than I'd gotten to know anyone since I learned that getting to know people just ends in heartbreak.

So of course, that rule goes out the window in a situation when it definitely will end in one of us dead. Typical, that is. Just typical.

After what the wall clock in Rowan's room tells me was a bit over an hour, we finally feel comfortable enough to turn the conversation onto the more awkward matter. The forest in the room. The kiss, and what it means, and us. Whether there is an 'us', that is, and what it means for the Arena.

It changes nothing, we decide. Teaming up would just end in heartbreak, since there's no way the Capitol would change their rules for two teens who happened to meet at precisely the wrong moment.

Which is all it is, really. I like Rowan, like him a lot, am even ready to admit it now, but that's all there is. Two fifteen year olds who happen to fancy each other at the moment. Even now, with the turmoil of emotions running through my head, I can admit that. If we'd met anywhere but here we would've danced around each other for far longer, hopefully gotten together eventually, been together for a few months and then split up, just as I've seen numerous couples at school do. At fifteen, you're too young for true love.

I tell Rowan this, and he agrees. "That doesn't change anything though," he says. "You're here and I'm here and we like each other. That's enough."

And it is enough. I know that it's only the pressure of the Games that's making things go this fast, that it was only the prospect of the Arena in a few days that gave Rowan the courage to kiss me. The closeness of death is playing with our emotions, making them more intense that they'd usually be. I don't care, not at the moment. It's odd feeling this way. Elated happiness, but dread because I know that there's no way this could last. Mix that in with the confusion and wonder of the morning, the tension of the rest of that day, the frustration of the elevator – today's been a real emotional rollercoaster.

Soon the talking merges into leaning against each other (and the wall) in the blind spot of the door. That morphs into kissing quickly enough, and so we spend another pleasant half hour or so.

Then I notice the time. It's ten minutes until the Training Scores are due to be broadcast on television. We get up and make ourselves presentable. Rowan's cheeks are slightly flushed – the guy seems to go red more easily than me – so he goes into his bathroom and splashes cold water on them in an attempt to make the redness go away. I laugh at him and get a face full of water for my trouble.

So like that, joking and laughing, we make our way to the television room where it's harder than usual to keep the about the burst into tears face on.

"What's so funny?" Blue asks from where he's sprawled out on an armchair flipping through channels, a can of one of those not bad Capitol fizzy drinks in his hand.

Rowan improvises. "I was telling Johanna about one of my brother and mine's exploits back home in the mill. You see, Aaron in all his infinite wisdom had managed to wedge a piece of paper in a very delicate piece of machinery…"

He is cut off by Marianas who is sitting in another armchair reading a brightly coloured Capitol gossip magazine. "Yes, yes, very interesting I'm sure." He doesn't sound remotely interested.

"Yes, it was rather interesting," Rowan tells him cheerfully. "What's even more interesting is what Johanna here managed to pull off in training."

I resolve to injure him later. At the moment, of course, I'm stuck starting down at the ground sheepishly and trying to remember something interesting that happened when they ask.

"So, what did you do?" Blue, unlike Marianas who has given up even the pretence of listening, sounds curious.

I try to conjure up the emotion of wanting to vanish and hope I'm pulling off the appearance of doing so properly. "I fell off their climbing wall."

Well, technically I did. I don't add that I did so on purpose.

"You what?" Willow appears in the doorway. "Are you okay, Johanna?"

"Mostly. It wasn't from very high up. A few bruises – do you want to see?"

Willow shakes her head. "I think I'll pass, thanks. Blue, do you mind putting the television onto the Games? The scores will be broadcast soon."

They are – as it turns out, Blue flips to the right channel just in time. The scores are also mostly predictable and accompanied by the same encouraging commentators as usual. Note sarcasm for that second part.

District One pulls off a nine and a ten respectively for the girl and the boy. District Two both get eights, which is still better than most people but nothing like what their District usually manages. District Three are above and below average each, with the girl getting a seven and the boy a five. I resolve to look out for them – seven is pretty high for a non Career.

Four score an eight and a nine. I pay attention to the girl from Five, and she gets a six – pretty average, but she did seem to be the organising force behind the Unionists. District Six is nothing special.

Then comes our turn. Rowan pulls a seven, which gets him the attention he wants and a few laughs from the commentators – 'The seven from Seven'. Next is me and I manage that three, just as I wanted. Willow and Blue groan and the former shoots me another of her sympathetic glances. Marianas just laughs. I think he's a bit drunk. Myself, I resist the urge to smile triumphantly and focus on District Eight.

They're also pretty average – both fives. The weakest link in the Union, for all of the girl's bluster. Then Nine, who pull a six and a four. District Ten is the first proper non-Career upset, which suits me just fine. Crow, their boy, manages a nine, which is better than half the Careers.

I'm not as surprised as I should be. Tall, strong-looking, quiet Crow does have something about him which radiates power and strength. District Five must be jumping for joy to have him as an ally.

Then come Eleven and Twelve, with all fours but a six from the boy of the former. The night ends with me established firmly as the weakest contestant.

Between this and Rowan, it hasn't been a bad evening.